For years, Avenue B was the part of the Tompkins Square area that kept changing, with cones, new signs, trial traffic patterns and an Open Street that began as a pandemic measure. As of this month the street is finished. Over the next few years, the inside of the park is where the fences will go up.
The sequence matters for anyone who uses these blocks every day. The east edge of the park is now a fixed piece of the neighborhood. The interior's recreation area, paths, central transverse and dog run will take turns being under construction, on timelines that range from "next year" to "by 2028."
The street got finished first
On Tuesday, October 13, the city's Department of Transportation announced that its Avenue B redesign was complete. EV Grieve reported that DOT Commissioner Mike Flynn marked the occasion at Avenue B and Eighth Street with local officials and community representatives.
The biggest change is on the three blocks next to the park. Between Seventh and 10th Streets, cars now travel north only, and cyclists can ride in both directions. When DOT started construction in late June, it said the aim was to "naturally reduce vehicle volumes" until the traffic left was mostly local access. Emergency vehicles and sanitation trucks can still reach the avenue.
Here is what is now permanently on the street:
| Element | What it does |
|---|---|
| Curb extensions at intersections | Wider corners protected by planters, bike corrals and granite blocks, built to shorten crossings and improve visibility |
| Northbound-only traffic, 7th to 10th Streets | Discourages through traffic while keeping local, delivery and emergency access |
| Two-way bike connection | Lets cyclists travel both directions on a stretch where cars go one way |
| Loading zones at each end of every block | Gives deliveries a place to stop and is meant to reduce large-truck traffic, while vans can still load and unload |
| Bike Boulevard signage | Tells cyclists they may use the full lane and sets a 10-mph limit for trucks |
Open Street hours stay the same at 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily. The city's Open Streets directory lists the Loisaida Open Streets Community Coalition as the program partner on Avenue B.
The street will look different this month than it did at the ribbon cutting. Parks employees told EV Grieve that the plants in the new planters along the park side of Avenue B can't survive cold weather and would be removed within a few weeks. Mini Christmas trees will take their place.
Commissioner Flynn explained why the city wanted the avenue finished and stable in NYC DOT's June 29 construction release:
"The Avenue B Open Street has been a central meeting place for neighbors, families, and friends for years, serving as a connecting point to nearby schools, Tompkins Square Park, and other points through the East Village."
Inside the fence line, the calendar runs to 2028
Two days after the Avenue B announcement, Parks officials came to Community Board 3's Parks, Recreation, Waterfront & Resiliency Committee with a set of projects for the park itself. None of them has a firm start date. Taken together, they mean the park's interior will be in some stage of construction long after the street outside has settled.
The recreation area. On October 15 the committee backed Option 1, the most extensive of three proposals Parks presented. It calls for a new in-ground pool in place of the current mini-pool, renovated basketball courts, replacement fitness equipment and a resurfaced recreation area. The budget is $9.93 million, with $6.1 million from Gov. Kathy Hochul's NY SWIMS grant program and $3.83 million from the city. Construction is expected to take about 18 months. The second option would have taken two years in phases. As EV Grieve noted, the committee vote is a recommendation, not a final decision. The proposal was scheduled to go to the full Community Board 3 on October 27.
Much of the public discussion focused on the park's calisthenics community, whose members have pushed to keep the decades-old pull-up and parallel bars. In response, Parks says it will use a 3D scan of the current fitness area to recreate its layout and will add more pull-up and parallel bars than first proposed, plus equipment that meets accessibility standards. The committee also asked that the half basketball court near the fitness area along Avenue B be kept.
The paths. At the same meeting, Steve Simon, chief of staff for the Parks Department's Manhattan borough office, said money secured through Councilmember Harvey Epstein will pay for repairs to the park's pothole-filled walkways. Work will likely start on the west side.
The Ninth Street transverse. Funding is already in the budget to rebuild this east-west path through the park. It was planned several years ago but postponed while Parks focused on the new field house, which was completed in April 2025.
The large dog run. Parks plans to put down synthetic turf in the large dog run.
EV Grieve reported that Parks gave no exact timeline for the path or dog run work. A slide shown at the meeting listed the paths as "completed by 2028" and the dog run project for next year.
Why the order changes how the park works
The street was designed, built and declared done in one season. DOT began construction June 29 and announced completion October 13. The park projects are separate efforts with separate funding sources and separate approvals. One still needs a full-board vote, and the others have no schedule beyond "next year" and "by 2028."
So over the next couple of years, Avenue B between Seventh and 10th will be the part of the Tompkins Square area whose layout is already settled. It has wider corners, slower traffic and fixed Open Street hours. It also gives views into a park that will be fenced off in sections at different times. The recreation area, if the full board and the city move ahead with Option 1, is a roughly 18-month project on its own. The paths will likely start on the west side, near Avenue A. The transverse cuts across the middle. The dog run turf is set for next year. These are four separate projects, and none has a public start date yet.
The half court the committee asked Parks to keep sits along Avenue B. If that request survives the full board and design, a small piece of the recreation area will stay on the side of the park the street redesign just finished.
The blocks around the park, this fall
Changes in the shops around the park have kept pace with the changes in the park itself.
- Thone, 501 East Sixth Street just east of Avenue A, opened in early October as a Georgian bakery-cafe and natural-wine bar. It serves coffee, pastries and bread in the morning and switches to wine and snacks around 5 p.m.
- Kotobuki East Village is back to full-service dining after three years of takeout only. It's now in a larger space at 8 Stuyvesant Street near Ninth Street, with its first full bar.
- Fluff Club, a dog-themed apparel shop, has its sign up at 9 Avenue B between Houston and Second Street, with no opening date announced as of late September.
- Yamadaya, a Japanese grocery, has new signage at 37 Avenue A and advertised a fall opening, but no date had been set as of early October.
- Potenza Centrale, Luigi Iasilli's pizza shop at 38 Avenue B near Third Street, closed in late September after nearly three years.
Two dates on the park's own calendar stay fixed through the construction talk. The Tompkins Square Greenmarket runs year-round on Sundays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Avenue A and Seventh Street. NYC Parks lists "The Wonders of Winter" for Sunday, December 20, from 1 to 2:30 p.m., at Avenue A and St. Marks Place.
A Sunday loop that covers both sides
This route takes you past the finished street and the spots inside the park where work is planned:
- Start at the Greenmarket at Avenue A and Seventh Street when it opens at 9 a.m.
- Walk a block south and just east of Avenue A to Thone on Sixth Street for a morning pastry.
- Cross to Avenue B and walk north from Seventh to 10th Street. This stretch has the one-way traffic, the planter-protected corners and, depending on the week, either the last of the fall plants or the first mini Christmas trees.
- Head into the park and cross on the Ninth Street transverse, the east-west path whose rebuild is already funded.
- Finish near the recreation area and fitness equipment, the part of the park the full board was set to weigh in on, before the outline of the proposed in-ground pool exists anywhere but on a slide.
For more on how these blocks have been changing, our August look at the East Village's storefronts filling back in follows a different stretch of the same story, and our East Village neighborhood page gathers the rest.
If you live near Tompkins Square Park and want to understand how a finished Avenue B and a park under phased construction could affect your building's appeal over the next few years, Rachel Gavrieli is glad to talk it through. Schedule a consultation whenever it suits you.
